I took my god-daughter to see Disney on Ice at the weekend. It was the first time I'd been entrusted with the care of a three year-old since my own kids were little.

Fortunately, we got through the day without either of us being mortally wounded, or throwing a tantrum.

At least, until the three hour journey home - Disney On Ice let out at the same time as Wembley Stadium disgorged 100,000 rugby fans - when I inadvertably referred to another driver as a "fuckface".

Admittedly, the show wasn't spectacular. It had its moments, but a lengthy and tedious retelling of the Peter Pan story during the first half nearly lost us both. When she started asking to go home at that point, I nearly let her.

Fortunately, once they got into The Little Mermaid and Frozen, all was forgiven. She was up and dancing along with most of the kids in the audience.

What was really telling for me, though, is that I was sat next to a couple in their 60s, who had come all the way from Portsmouth without any children in tow. They seemed to love it every bit as much as my god-daughter did... and I could relate.

See... here's something you should know about me: I love Disney.

Alright, it's an enormous, money-making, corporation, and not perfect. I've known people to get burnt out from working with them.

I know Uncle Walt held some dubious views, which may have been mostly airbrushed out of the corporation's history.

But the product that Disney is peddling, what Walt Disney wanted for the world, is one that I can get behind wholeheartedly: storytelling, transporting us to our own unreality where we can shut out the real world. Where we can have our imaginations ignited.

Isn't that what video games do at their best?​NOBODY DOES IT BETTERFor my money, nobody does story better than Disney. Not only that, but they tell stories in a way that are accessible, uncynical, and life-affirming.

I understand criticism of Disney, but regardless of the corporate engine that powers their product, the end product is surely better than, I dunno, opening a shop where you can pay £5 to stab someone in the hand.

You see this almost flawless storytelling not only in their own movies, but everything that's part of their stable; there's a reason why the Disney-owned Marvel movies are almost universally loved, whereas the likes of Batman Vs Superman are labelled a depressing dirge. Likewise The Force Awakens.

Disney's precision storytelling is optimistic. Good overcomes bad. Relationships matter. Family matters, whether it's biological or more a sense of belonging. There is magic in the world if you just know where to look.

Nintendo is the closest that the games industry ever got to a Disney, but even then I worry that it's losing its lustre somewhat. Focusing on the past is good, but the company needs a storytelling renaissance like the one Disney went through in the late-80s; it needs its own The Little Mermaid to remind people what it's best at.

EASY RIDERSIf you've ever been fortunate enough to visit one of the Disney theme parks, you'll know that the attractions aren't rides like you'd get at Thorpe Park or Alton Towers; even the rollercoasters are wrapped up in storytelling, which starts the second you enter the park, and extends even to the queues and the restaurants.

It's total immersion in a fantasy that's better than where we have to live day to day.

The magic that Disney possesses is its ability to make adults feel like kids, by immersing them in a story. You see it at their parks; people wearing Mickey ears, behaving like happy five year-olds, buying into what Disney is selling.

I struggle to be cynical about that. Disney gives people the freedom to play, the freedom to be kids again. It's a powerful drug that speaks to our sense of wonder and imagination, and a deeply addictive one. Most people I know who've "done a Disney" yearn to go back again and again.

If you'll forgive my geekery, it's like when Malcolm McDowell got a taste of the Nexus in Star Trek Generations; finding a place that's everything you want the world to be. Being spat back out into reality after that can be harrowing.

It might not be real, but as I get older I despair more and more by what we're told the real world actually is. By how people can treat one another. When there is so much hate, where there could be love.

For me, that sort of transporting via story, that getting lost in somewhere else, is also what games do at their best, and part of why I think gamers are often so passionate about their hobby. Games transport us, and make us forget what's out there; the real world can struggle to compete. Threaten that, and you threaten their escape.

HOPEFUL FOR THE FUTUREI think that's what I want from games; I want to feel hopeful that the world isn't all bad. I want that sense of total immersion in a place that's better. I want to believe that people aren't all bad, even when their actions suggest otherwise.

There might appear to be a gulf of difference between Master Chief and Belle from Beauty & The Beast, but protagonists in games are usually trying to help. People, I want to believe, are fundamentally good, fundamentally want to do the right thing, even if they get it wrong, or are driven by demons.

We might not know all that's driving Mario, but we know he wants to rescue the Princess, and save the Mushroom Kingdom. He's striving to make his world a better place.

​It's a message I can get behind, a story I'm happy to live. I don't care if it isn't realistic. Optimism beats cynicism every time.

Lovely thoughts Biffs, I agree. I'm a terminal cynic though so I do worry if Disney's outlook on life is maybe setting up some more impressionable kids for a big fall later when they actually discover the world is full of said fuckfaces and not so many fairytale endings... though I do concede that in more recent films they have been more careful to show that sometimes everything doesn't always work out right. Rich Hall had a similar opinion on Room 101 years ago, clips probably on YT somewhere still.

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Mr Biffo

18/4/2016 01:24:36 pm

Yeah, that does cross my mind. I had a debate with a mate of mine once, who didn't want to tell his kids Father Christmas was real, because he didn't want them growing up thinking the world had lied to them.

Have you seen Inside Out? I think that's a good example of what you're talking about - very real and truthful about being a kid, without painting an unrealistic picture of the world.

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PeskyFletch

18/4/2016 03:13:33 pm

i dunno, speaking from personal experience being a generally happy optimistic person makes it more likely you'll get one of those fairy tale endings. after all , the only thing we really control are our own thoughts and i find i'm much better at making a fist of things than some of my more negatively inclined friends.

Peachynoodle

18/4/2016 01:23:17 pm

You are absolutely right! I'm the wrong side of 30 and non Disney people just don't get my excitement and why you would want a pair of Disney Vans or spend the money to go. 17 days until our first Disney holiday as a family and I am fit to burst!

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Mr Biffo

18/4/2016 01:25:09 pm

Ah, man. I'm jealous! Which one are you going to?

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Peachnoodle

18/4/2016 01:35:32 pm

Walt Disney World - eek! We are all going for my Mum's 60th, her choice - you are never too old for the magic 😊

Mr Biffo

18/4/2016 01:44:02 pm

She'll have the best time. I've not been there in years, mind. Epcot was always my favourite.

Clive Peppard

18/4/2016 01:50:17 pm

Up! was one of the most depressing films i have ever seen, and I've sen Vanilla Sky!!

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Mr Biffo

18/4/2016 03:24:34 pm

Hussssss! Up! was only depressing for the first 15 minutes.

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the moon

18/4/2016 03:34:56 pm

Don't ever watch Grave of the Fireflies

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Peskyfletch

18/4/2016 03:46:28 pm

I watched that in a cinema during LIFF. I've never seen so many adults simultaneously crying.

This article finally made it click why I don't like Disney. Instead of enjoying optimism I am suspicious of it. When I meet an optimistic person it tends to be that they are expressing what they WISH and not what they actually think.

They WANT the good outcome so they act like it WILL happen. And then when it doesn't I, who said "OK but what if this does not work out?" gets a call at 2AM to sort them right and fix their mistake I warned them about two weeks ago. And I do because I might be kind of cynic but I'm not an asshole. Ok I might be an asshole but I don't hate people. OK I might hate people but... you know what, let's just say I'm more awful in theory than practice.

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ben.jobson@developtraining.co.uk

18/4/2016 03:28:54 pm

i think we need to make Mr B president of the world. that should sort things out. how much more patreon money would that take?

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Mniglefingler

18/4/2016 04:07:47 pm

The world would surely be a better place if Mr Biffo was everyone's dad, just like Genghis Khan.

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Mr Biffo

18/4/2016 04:19:37 pm

You boys couldn't afford me as your dad, or your president.

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Dagenham Swish

18/4/2016 04:33:58 pm

Disney is good. Very good indeed. But give me Ghibli anytime.

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Dirty Barry

19/4/2016 03:08:43 am

Seconded! Early Disney was great, I love me some Pinocchio. However, new Disney has too much awful singing and is just a bit sickly.

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Picston Shottle

18/4/2016 05:06:20 pm

I have lived 15 miles from Disneyland for the past 7 years and I've still not paid a visit. But, now I have a little un (she's 11 months) I get the feeling I'm gonna be a season pass holder for YEARS to come - which terrifies me, because that means $3,000 a year, for YEARS to come! But, ya know, if that Disney magic makes her happy then I'm all for that.

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Dr Kank

18/4/2016 06:55:36 pm

I bet the employees of Lucasarts weren't feeling optimistic about video games when Disney got shot of them all.

I'm not a massive fan of Disney, but I am a huge Miyazaki fan, so I get what you mean.

One of the saddest things to happen in games is this thing where grey and brown military shooters are considered "proper" games and inventive, colourful, good-hearted stuff is shoved into a "for kids only" ghetto.

"Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization."

That's the problem with Disney. I want escapism but Disney's version causes me to reject it because it is too perfect, too predictable and too obviously fake.

At it's worse I feel that I am being politically/religiously preached too. That is a MAJOR turn off.

In the same way I have no time for car commercials that show the car flying along an open road with no traffic or those McDonalds adverts that show stores with a pleasant, clean, uncrowded environment, no chavs, a potpourri of race and genders working as employees and burgers that look...well...edible!

I know that on all counts that does not remotely resemble the McDonalds I visit. I can't relate to it; it fails the suspension of disbelief test. It is fake, so fake that I reject it entirely. I little bit of artistic licence would work but Disney and a lot of large corporations are way over the line for a cynical 40 year old like myself.

Let's talk about story telling from the perspective of someone of my age. Two of my favourite games I played in recent years were either mediocre from a game play perspective or in the case of the second, didn't really have much game play at all. The story did it for me in both cases.

They were Spec Ops: The Line and The Vanishing of Ethan Carter.

The latter had a pretty depressing and miserable ending, the former left me wanting to scrub myself clean with bleach afterwards.

Wouldn't change them for the world! I want more like that!

Just once I'd like the bad guy to win. I wan't my protagonist to be far more morally ambiguous, damaged as a person or just plain evil.

At the moment, the majority of games, even those that involve mass killing, usually have good triumphing over evil and tell the player that "doing the right thing" leads to success. There are a few exceptions of course but they are a minority.

I want less Disney and a lot more mature themes, including those that make me do things that I wouldn't do in real life - yeah I wouldn't shoot millions of bad guys in real life but you know what I mean - outrageously immoral or evil actions. I want to feel horrible as I need an antidote to the sugar-coated, cotton wool wrapped and sanitised world in which I spend my non gaming hours.

My 9 year old Nephew was talking to me about Star Wars the other day and asked me what my favourite characters were and he was shocked to hear that I side with the Empire/First Order and like Kylo Ren etc as I consider the bad guys cooler.

Isn't that how life goes? As a kid you want to be Luke Skywalker, hero of the Rebellion, but as you reach your 30's you want to be Darth Vader and bring peace and order to the Galaxy via an iron fist!?!

I want to be a f**kface instead of Mr Respectable, pays his tax, helps old ladies cross the road etc. I'm bored of being that guy!

I think that inherent hopefulness is something that's stomped out of us - it even begins in school when kids are just trying to be kids, but re already being set-up, told to sit still and do their work. Like they're being trained to be adults!

Then your teenage angst overtakes you. And it's all Emo Kylo Ren - "I'm so grim and mature, I'm such a cynic. Look at me!"

But then you gain some perspective and, as you say, hopefulness win out every time. Nobody wants to associate with people who are cynics. Being horrible doesn't make something "mature".

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Superbeast 37

19/4/2016 06:00:03 pm

Hopefulness doesn't win, stop or solve wars, conflicts and disputes though does it. It didn't do much for many slaughtered peoples over the years.

The Disney concept of good and evil is incredibly childish - not necessarily a bad thing given the target audience.

Very few people in conflict consider themselves to be the bad guys. Right and wrong is a matter of perspective.

In Spec Ops: The Line every act of evil and depravity you commit was committed in the belief that you were doing the "right thing" and attempting to save the good guys from the bad guys.

The message of that game was that the concept of good v evil and "doing the right thing" is pure bunk.

Padme doesn't realise until Ep 3 and far too late in the game that she is on the "wrong side". Whatever that means.

Anakin meanwhile supported Palpatine, not because he was evil but because he was sick of the endless war raging whilst impotent bureaucrats sat around blowing hot air in the senate. He saw a dictatorship as a way of forcing peace and saving lives.

Dealing a severe weakening blow to the Empire in Episode VI didn't achieve much either. With the police force of the galaxy weakened, the situation only got worse. More people died. But hey, the rebels are the good guys!

So many of these works of fiction mirror real life. Look at Libya under Gaddaffi. High standards of living, healthcare, education, life expectancy. Where is it now? What about post-Hussein Iraqi? Sure he killed some people......not half as many as died due to the "good guys" riding in to the rescue and installing democracy.

What happened to life expectancy and infant mortality when the evil colonialists invaded half the world a couple a centuries ago? What happened to that trend when the "bad guys" pulled out?

It's also boils down to that old cliche about the difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter. Two commonly recurring roles in video games.

The hopefulness stops when we grow up. It is killed off by pragmatism. It is the reason we don't employ children as diplomats and negotiators. It is the reason I don't buy into products aimed at kids.